


Day 1: Ultra Magnus

by GemmaRose



Series: Lost Light Fest 2018 [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Adoption, Gen, Kidnapping, Mentions of Shattered Glass, Only technically tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 09:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16155875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: When he heard that the Lost Light's missing sparklings had reappeared in Brainstorm's lab, Ultra Magnus expected minor injuries and the standard level of chaos that the young femmes brought to most situations. He certainly didnotexpect to find Rodimus's ward guilty of sparkling abduction.





	Day 1: Ultra Magnus

The heavy doors of Brainstorm’s lab, usually sealed tight to keep the scientist’s inventions safely contained, stood open as Ultra Magnus strode down the hall towards them. Just this once, however, he would let the broken security protocols slide. Even at his current distance, he could hear the commotion from within that assured him no mad science was taking place today. Not after the nigh-miraculous return of two of the Lost Light’s youngest crewmembers.

He paused just outside the door and looked over the scene before him. Brainstorm’s lab was as much a mess as ever, though he could spot no flagrant code violations, and in the middle of the floor, just as reported, stood two small femmes. Well, stood was perhaps an inaccurate description. Junior was clinging to Whirl’s legs, the whole of her tiny frame shaking with sobs as claws stroked the back of her helm with gentleness that he never would’ve suspected them capable of even just last meta-cycle. A few mechanometers further into the room, Firestarter’s pedes weren’t even on the floor, her frame suspended between Rodimus and Drift in a tight hug.

Neither of them seemed to be injured, but he sent a comm to Ratchet anyways to expect the femmes in for a checkup at the top of the next cycle. That should be enough time for him to get their statements about what the frag happened, and their caretakers to assure themselves that the femmes were indeed home safe. He stepped into the lab as Ratchet commed him back a confirmation, and his optic ridges rose at the high pitched noise Firestarter emitted. It sounded almost like a sparkling, which was ridiculous. She’d retained her proto-glyphs, but it wasn’t like her at all to use them with fully formed mechs.

“What the frag?” Rodimus muttered, pulling away as Ultra Magnus approached and looking Firestarter up and down.

“Oh, right.” Firestarter looked down at her arms, curled in front of her chestplate supporting a grey, boxy blob.

“Is that a sparkling?” Drift asked, optics cycling as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Ultra Magnus was tempted to do the same. The sparkling was the largest he’d ever seen, nearly as long as Firestarter’s chassis was wide, and its optics a pale blue he’d only seen on fresh-forged sparklings. Optics which were, he realised somewhat belated, fixed on him. It had stubby little limbs, little not-quite-cubes with only the barest hint of a hand or pede on the end, and it seemed to be reaching for him with all four of them.

“Hey, Mags.” Rodimus plucked the sparkling from Firestarter’s arms, holding it out with one hand. “Take care of him for a klik, would ya?”

He took the sparkling mutely, and blinked down at it in surprise at the flare of pure, undiluted joy that filled its tiny EM field. His field, he corrected himself as he checked the sparkling’s data tags. The sparkling was a mech, unnamed and very very young. He could hear Rodimus bombarding Firestarter with questions, but the words slipped over him like hot oil. The sparkling fit perfectly in his hand, and had somehow managed to roll onto ~~its~~ his side and latch onto his thumb. He’d not been allowed to hold any sparkling so young before, possibly because all four so far who’d been forged or found aboard the Lost Light had been significantly smaller at this stage of development.

So small. The sparkling was so _small_ , a warm little bundle of sentio metalico not yet refined by the instructions writ into his CNA and carved in his spark crystal. So small, and trusting, and he’d never thought himself particularly fond of sparklings but already he liked this one. He reached out with his field, and the sparkling’s field practically sang with the purest love he’d ever felt. He brought his other hand up, and the sparkling let out a warbling noise of joy. Odd, he’d not heard any of the Lost Light’s sparklings make that noise at such a small contact. Well, unless it was Junior being given back to Whirl after an extended period away from him, but she’d been overly attached to him her whole functioning.

“Magnus would have my aft if I let you keep this.” Brainstorm said, and at the sound of his name he looked up to see the ship’s resident mad scientist taking some sort of gun from Junior. After a nano-klik he recognised it as the ‘hopper’ she’d had Clicker film her testing, the thing which had led to her and Firestarter being lost this past stellar cycle. While Brainstorm’s wording left something to be desired in terms of professionalism, he couldn’t disagree with the sentiment.

Resetting his vocaliser loudly, he waited for the mechs in the room to look away from the young femmes before speaking. “An apt assessment, Brainstorm.” he acknowledged with a nod, then turned his optics to Firestarter. “However, I have a question for these femmes.”

“Shoot.” Rodimus said, setting Firestarter down and resting a hand on her helm.

“Where, exactly, did you acquire this sparkling?” he tilted his hand slightly, and the sparkling in his hand let out a delighted squeal as it slid into his curled fingers, little square legs kicking happily as undeveloped hands grabbed at his plating.

There was a moment of silence as all optics went first to the sparkling, then to Firestarter. The little gun-former whined, looking plaintively at Junior, who shook her helm. Firestarter’s shoulders slumped, helm dipping for a moment before she pulled herself up as tall as she could and gave him a firm look. Were she a full sized femme it might’ve even been intimidating.

“We found him with the Evil-bots-”

“The _what?_ ” Rodimus interrupted, and Ultra Magnus sighed.

“Captain, please refrain from interrupting.”

“Hey!” Rodimus protested, but said nothing more when Ultra Magnus gestured for Firestarter to continue.

“The hopper Junior made took us to other universes like it’s supposed to, but its targeting system is slag. That’s why it took us so long to get home.” she said, her determined expression falling to one more apologetic as she leaned into Rodimus’s touch. “One of the ‘verses we went to, everything was weird and backwards. There were Autobots, but they were all evil. _Really_ evil.” she looked from Rodimus, to Drift, then finally to him, optics bright behind her visor.

“And you abducted this sparkling from those... Evil-bots?” he asked, which prompted a quick nod. A nano-klik later, though, she tensed and shook her helm.

“We didn’t abduct him, we saved him!”

He looked down at the sparkling in his hand and sighed heavily. No matter the morals of this little mech’s caretakers, they were surely worried about him. “That was not your call to make.” he said sternly. “His caretakers-”

“Didn’t give a slag about him!” Firestarter snapped, a lick of flame flickering from the barrel on her back. “Evil Optimus called his dad a traitor, and they left him in this awful room and- and- you can’t send him back there, Mags, you just can’t!” Firestarter’s ventilations shook her shoulders and chassis, a drop of coolant running down from behind her visor.

“When you say awful, what do you mean?” he asked slowly, lowering himself to one knee so he was closer to her height.

“It was empty.” she said softly, stepping sideways to lean against Rodimus’s legs, optics cast down to the floor. “They had him in a box, and he was screaming so loud when they shoved us in there.”

“In the box?” Drift frowned, and Firestarter shook her helm.

“The room. Their Rodimus said he’d never heard him not screaming, and I just- I couldn’t leave him there.” she looked up at him, and Ultra Magnus looked back at the sparkling in his hand. His optics were shuttered now, his vents deep and even and his field warm with vague happiness.

“Did this other Rodimus give a name for him?” he asked, and Firestarter shook her helm.

“Evil Whirl called him brat-bot, but that’s not a name.”

“No, it’s not.” he agreed, bringing the sparkling close to his chest. Really, there were no rules about this sort of thing. No crime had been committed here, and assuming Firestarter was being truthful the sparkling had no fit caretakers to be returned to even if such a thing was necessary. He didn’t have any caretakers here either, though, and that wasn’t an acceptable state of things. Unless... “You said that this alternate Optimus called the sparkling’s father a traitor. Did he perhaps name this mech?”

“No.” Firestarter shook her helm.

“But Beardy-Rod did.” Junior piped up, drawing all optics to her.

“Beardy-Rod?” Whirl asked, tilting his helm slightly.

“Evil-bot Rodimus had a beard.” Junior said with a small smile. “It looked kinda silly.”

Ultra Magnus bit back a smile at the unbidden image of Rodimus with a drawn-on moustache. “Who did he name?” he asked. “It’s likely the sparkling will respond positively to being placed in that mech’s care.”

Junior giggled, and lifted a hand to point at his chest. “You.”

Ultra Magnus cycled his audials. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

“Evil-Magnus was his carrier.” Junior said, slightly louder this time with careful enunciation.

“Explains why he likes you so much.” Rodimus chuckled, walking over to pat him on the arm. “Guess that means you just volunteered yourself as his caretaker.”

He cycled his optics once, twice, then looked down at the sparkling in his hand. It did explain why the squealing had only started when he entered the room, as well as why he’d reacted so strongly to the sparkling’s presence. His spark recognised the matching CNA in the sparkling, as it had recognised his brother’s CNA when they were young, before Dominus had installed various mods to alter and conceal his spark signature for undercover missions. “So it would seem.” he said numbly.

“What’re ya gonna name the bitlet?” Whirl asked, walking over with Junior resting on one of his hips, her little hands gripping tight at seams in his armour.

“Minori.” he said after a moment of thought. “Minori Ambus.” he ran his thumb over the sparkling’s smooth helm, and couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips. He wasn’t one to make decisions based on feelings, but this one felt right.

“Thank you!” Firestarter squealed, jumping up and hooking her arms around his neck. He sighed, and patted her on the back with his free hand. With any luck, this sparkling would be as well-behaved as Junior and Clicker were in their early days.

**Author's Note:**

> Minori is, in fact, a very well-behaved sparkling. All he needs to remain calm (when properly fuelled and cleaned) is field contact, and when he fusses all it takes is some bouncing and hushing from Magnus to calm him down. His eventual alt-mode is a car carrier like Magnus’s, and he does have the ambus moustache.


End file.
